Reduced data requirements announced for South Korea's K-REACH

South Korea's environment ministry announced significantly reduced registration data requirements for substances currently classed as "non-hazardous" under the UN globally harmonised system (GHS) classification from June 2018.

The move comes as a response to appeals from industry to lessen the burdens of registration. The government has accepted the industry case that requiring the same test data indiscriminately, regardless of a substance's currently understood hazardousness, does not make sense.

Reduced data requirements for a number of substances – or what the government calls "dualising" the data submission based on hazardousness – will come into effect from June 2018. Lower requirements in the form of a simplified dossier will apply for substances which are not classed as hazardous under the GHS classification and labelling standards. Under the proposals, the number of tests results required to support data submission for these substances will be reduced from 47 to 15.

'Dualising' the data submission based on hazardousness will come into effect from June 2018.

Temporary intermediate products

Lower requirements will also apply for chemicals that only appear as temporary intermediate products during the manufacture of other products. When occurring in annual volumes of under 1,000 tonnes no tests will be required for these substances, and when occurring in volumes of 1000 tonnes or over, the simplified dossier backed by 15 sets of test data will apply.

The changes also include "cluster registration" for substances with similar properties which can be treated as single substances from June 2018. This follows examples from the OECD and EU where some metallic compounds have been grouped together.

Data requirements for the ongoing registration of 510 Priority Existing Chemicals (PECS) will be unaffected by these changes as the deadline for PECS registration is June 2018.

The changes were announced on 18 October together with a package of government support for K-REACH.